


Eye for an Eye

by DmitriMolotov



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF, Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Amputation, Angst, Body Horror, Dissociation, Ender Eye Au, Flashbacks, Graphic Description, Intrusive Thoughts, M/M, Platonic Relationships, minecraft au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2018-10-06 03:33:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10324685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DmitriMolotov/pseuds/DmitriMolotov
Summary: “Ryan Haywood, for the crime of necromancy, use of illicit magic and manslaughter, you have been found guilty. How do you wish to die?”“I do not.”“Then you shall be banished to the Nether until you do.”Few had expected Ryan to return from the Nether, but no one expected him to return as he did.A story in theEnder Eye AUwith a tie-in toPromises and salve.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing this bit by bit on Tumblr and will bulk update here when I feel like I have enough material for a chapter.   
> So if you're impatient, keep an eye on the [Tumblr tag](https://dmitrimolotov.tumblr.com/tagged/Eye-for-an-Eye-fic).  
> Also, high-five to Sami for revitalizing this AU and making awesome art to go with it.

Ryan’s reign of terror had, at long last, come to an end.

With much resistance, his hands had been bound behind his back and he had been forced to his knees, but there was still a fire in his chest and defiance in his eyes.

Gavin now stood over him, sword outstretched, the tip pressing lightly against his forehead more in a show of dominance than real threat; still, Ryan refused to yield, causing a ruby droplet to gather against the edge of the blade where it met skin, beading and eventually breaking, running down his face and gathering in the corner of his right eye. He didn’t even blink.

To Gavin’s right, Michael stood with one hand on the hilt of his own sword, ready to defend if need be, and to Gavin’s left, Jeremy wore a disappointed expression hidden beneath cold eyes. Far behind them, Geoff and Jack watched on reproachfully.

In front of them, crowds of villagers had eagerly gathered to watch justice be dealt, many of them seeking some kind of personal vengeance for the horrors Ryan had unleashed upon the world.

This part was ceremonial. They’d discussed Ryan’s punishment at length in private; they all knew how this was going to go down. Michael was prepared to carry out the orders, should it come to that, but they all doubted it. Ryan wasn’t one to give up without a fight. They were much better prepared for the alternative.

“Ryan Haywood,” Gavin began, sounding much more in-control than he felt. “For the crime of necromancy, use of illicit magic and manslaughter, you have been found guilty.”

A cheer went up from the audience.

Ryan glared back at him along the length of the blade, his icy blue eyes condemning.

For just a second, Gavin faltered and looked away before he regained composure and went on. “How do you wish to die?”

“I do not.”

Ryan’s response was immediate and unflinching. He continued to glare at Gavin.

This time Gavin glared back, a self-satisfied smile curling into his lips.

“Then you shall be banished to the Nether until you do.”

Ryan’s eyes grew wide at the realisation. “No! You can’t!”

“Light it up,” Gavin commanded Jeremy, who immediately knelt at the base of the obsidian archway a little way behind Ryan, sparking a small fire with flint and steel.

The portal shimmered to life, purple waves of light gently lapping at the obsidian border, softly humming, vibrating, almost beckoning.

Ryan was all too familiar with the sound. It immediately sent waves of panic through him and he thrashed about, trying to free himself of the coarse rope that tied his wrists.

“Please, no, anywhere but there…”

“An eye for an eye, Ryan,” Gavin mocked. “You brought the monsters here, now we send them one back.”

Michael picked him off the ground, the strength of Mogar coursing through his veins; Ryan tried to find his footing, but Michael gave him a sharp shove backwards and he felt the sudden cold embrace of the light of the portal. He remained suspended there for a moment that felt like an eternity, cursing his own mistakes, their treachery, everything that had led to this point, before the world he knew faded to the dim red glow and heat of the Nether. He stumbled backwards, falling on his left shoulder, tearing his shirt and leaving a bloody scrape along the length of his arm from the sharp, rocky netherrack. He sprang to his feet and dove for the portal, but he was too late. Just as he reached it, the light stuttered and went out completely. Momentum carried him forward and he landed hard on the other side of the portal, taking the brunt of the impact on his chin, leaving his face bloody. He struggled to his knees, looking back at the empty obsidian archway forlornly.

They must have destroyed the portal in the Overworld.

He was trapped.

The acrid, sulfurous scent of lava and netherrack flooded his nostrils, burning in his sinuses and bringing tears to his eyes. The sound of the mobs that lurked in the darkness echoed around him. His blood turned to ice. With his hands still bound, he felt acutely vulnerable, and for the first time in a long time, he truly felt afraid.

* * *

 

Several things Ryan learned quickly.

  1. Netherrack, which formed the majority of the terrain in the Nether, was sharp and good for cutting through rope.
  2. It was also prone to catching fire and suddenly, inexplicably liquefying into lava pools.
  3. The Nether had no day/night cycle nor weather, and the only light came from lava or glowstone in caves, making it impossible to tell the time.
  4. Anything he constructed would be destroyed by mobs, become consumed by lava or spontaneously combust.
  5. Literally everything was trying to kill him.



Ryan was able to free his hands on some of the aforementioned netherrack and immediately began exploring the area. Near to the portal he’d been sent through, there was a chest with a diamond sword and some modest supplies meant for a single expedition. They wouldn’t last, but they were better than nothing. He took everything he could carry. He knew he would need it.

He wasn’t a stranger to the creatures or even the terrain of the Nether, but his expeditions had always been short; scouting, gathering a specific item, measuring a particular feature. For science. He’d never stayed there long enough to truly get a feel for the horrors it beheld.

It was impossible to sleep, so he didn’t. He focused all his energy on crossing the perilous terrain in search of another portal back to the Overworld.

He had no idea how long he’d been wandering, how long he’d been slowly starving, dehydrating, exhausting himself on his quest for freedom. He figured he should be dead by now. But then, there was just no telling anything in the Nether. There was no way to navigate the ever-shifting landscape in any comprehensible way, nothing to gauge the passing of time… just  _nothing_.

As he climbed a rocky hill, through the heat haze given off by the lava falls surrounding him, he thought he saw something. In the distance it looked as if a structure was built into the side of a cliff, or maybe it was just a hallucination. Either way, he picked up his pace to get a better look and almost immediately tripped on a shifting crevice between blocks of netherrack and fell hard onto his hands and knees, rolling out of the way just in time for the crevice to open up and become a lava pit.

He rolled onto his back to catch his breath and inspect his raw and now scraped and bleeding palms. He could feel the sting indicating his knees were in the same condition and cursed his kilt for not offering more protection.

He let his head fall back onto the rock with a thud and squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to block out his surroundings for a moment.

Had it been a day or a year? Had his [salve](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7686034) that successfully resurrected Jeremy and given the gift of regeneration to Michael and Gavin somehow transferred to him? Could it be he’d inadvertently made them all immortal?

He dreaded to think it.

As much as he wasn’t prepared to die yet, an eternity of torment wandering the Nether was far worse than any death. He focused his energy back to the one thing keeping him searching for a way out.

_Gavin._

His betrayal.

He drew a deep breath, filled with the sickly stench he suspected he would never fully accustom to, picked himself up and walked on.

As he began descending the hill, he realised his eyes didn’t deceive him, there was actually a structure in the cliff-face, and gathered near to the entrance was a haunting of four Endermen. He’d encountered them in the Overworld; he knew they were elusive and dangerous creatures that could  _teleport_ …

_Perhaps… just maybe, they could teleport between worlds?_

He’d slain them in the Overworld and sometimes, their corpses held a mysterious pearl – an Ender Pearl – that, when thrown, teleported the person who threw it to the location it landed instantly… some kind of quantum mechanics he couldn’t fully understand and it frustrated him greatly. But to his knowledge, no one had ever tried to use an Ender Pearl in the Nether.

He glanced down at the sword at his hip.

_Worth a shot._

He steeled himself as he unsheathed the blade and carefully picked his way towards the creatures, eyes cast downwards, gaze averted so as not to enrage them – a trick he’d learned in the Overworld.

When he was within striking distance, he mustered all his strength and courage and lunged for the legs of the nearest creature, bringing it howling to the ground. A second swing of his sword neatly severed the Enderman’s head from its shoulders and its body sublimed into purple smoke. He didn’t have time to check for a pearl as he swung again for the legs of the second monster, the other two letting out ungodly howls that threatened to split his ears, but still he hacked away. One disappeared as he swung for its legs, and suddenly he was hit from behind and sent sprawling on the ground. He picked himself up and attacked ferociously, no longer paying any mind to himself, all his attention on swinging and slicing and hacking away at remaining monsters until there was nothing left but swirling purple smoke and the echoes of their screams off the cavernous walls surrounding him. 

Shining in the midst of the carnage was a single green orb. An Ender Pearl.

He sheathed his sword and picked it up carefully, caressing it for a moment. He knew its use would physically hurt him, but the chance to escape this godforsaken place outweighed any regard for his physical wellbeing.

He held the pearl to his lips for a moment, silently pleading it would take him home.

He held his breath as he threw it towards the entrance of the structure, closing his eyes as it landed, bracing for the rush and cold shock of teleportation.

Pain ripped through his very bones, straining every joint, making him acutely aware of all the minor wounds he had sustained on his journey, tearing a physical cry of pain from his throat as fell to his knees on the other side.

He let out the breath he’d been holding and opened his eyes.

The stench of the nether filled his nose and his heart fell as the structure loomed over him, illuminated by the soft red glow of the surrounding lavafalls and glowstone outcrops.

He caught a sob in his throat.

_There had to be a way..._

_He had to find more endermen._

 

* * *

 

 

His hunt for ender pearls had grown into a blood sport.

Teleportation made travel through the Nether faster and  _somewhat_  less dangerous – he had nearly teleported into a freshly opened lava pit on several occasions – but he’d mostly gotten the hang of it. He thought he would have gotten used to the pain, but every time he used a pearl, it was just as sharp as the last. He wasn’t going to let it deter him.

Originally he’d convinced himself there was a way he could use the pearls to teleport directly to the Overworld, but as he continued to use them, he grew less and less convinced there was a way to “glitch out” of the Nether and instead turned his focus back to finding another portal.

He was surprised at how quickly he learned to navigate the Nether… or at least it felt like it was quickly, perhaps it had been months. He couldn’t tell. At any rate, he had begun to learn to pick out the landscape and notice trends in lava pits and where the netherrack was going to catch fire next. After slaying several hauntings of endermen, he learned how best to use the pearls to get around and always tried to keep one or two handy to escape danger.

Inside the structure he’d discovered when he’d slain the first mob of endermen, he had found intact chests containing items; weapons and leather he could fashion into rudimentary armour, which he’d needed almost immediately as he’d also come across new mobs. Blazes and wither skeletons spawned inside fortresses in the Nether and he’d quickly learned the structures were not a place of refuge.

In his explorations, he’d killed countless endermen for their pearls, along with various other enemies he’d crossed paths with in his quest for freedom, but despite receiving blows that ought to have killed him outright; being thrown off cliffs and hardly having eaten or drank anything since his arrival, he’d survived everything the Nether had thrown at him. He was beginning to suspect he was cursed.

Of course, if he was, it was his own doing.

On the bright side, he no longer feared death.

_And yet you trek on._

He couldn’t let his negativity get the best of him.

_You’d be amazed the things I will do out of sheer spite._

He wasn’t ready to give up yet.

Sometimes he thought of the others fondly. He missed their company. He missed any kind of human interaction. The isolation, the sleeplessness, the constant state of awareness and being kept on the edge of pain and terror, it was enough to get to anyone, so he latched onto whatever fleeting moments of peace or happiness he could.

_When Jeremy had opened his eyes, Ryan’s heart had leapt._

_“You kept your promise.”_

_“I did.”_

Except he hadn’t.

He had promised he wouldn’t let Jeremy die.  _That_  he had been unable to help. Jeremy had been bitten by one of the zombies Ryan had allowed into their world. He’d lost his arm, Michael had amputated it in an attempt to stop the infection from spreading, and in all likelihood bought Ryan the time he needed to ultimately save Jeremy’s life… or at least bring him back.

If he hadn’t been able to revive –  _resurrect_  Jeremy, he never would have been able to forgive himself.

_Maybe they were right… maybe you deserve this._

Jeremy had only lost his arm. How many villagers’ lives had been destroyed by the monsters he had loosed on the city?

_No. It was an accident; he had been trying to help. He had been trying to fix it. They hadn’t even let him explain himself. He was doing good work, important work, and Gavin had twisted his words, made it out to be something nefarious, dangerous, to be feared._

Ryan wasn’t to be trusted.

It took the villagers no time to eat that shit up. One look at his lab, at Jeremy, at the regenerative powers his salve had granted Gavin and Michael; they would never believe anything he said. They feared that which they didn’t understand – science, magic, witchcraft, whatever they decided to call it – and Gavin played to them with all he had.

More importantly though, Gavin had managed to turn the others against him.

 

 _“We_ trusted _you, Ryan.”_

_It hurt the most to hear it from Jeremy. “I didn’t want to believe them…”_

_“Please, Jeremy –”_

_“…but you hurt so many people.”_

 

The way Jeremy hadn’t been able to look him in the eye, the way he’d stared at the ground and absently rubbed at the fresh pink scar tissue where Michael had amputated, that hurt more than his words.

He’d been wandering past another Nether fortress, skirting the edge of a cliff high above a lava pit, ghasts drifting past him casually, not entirely aware of his presence yet, thankfully.

He was still thinking about the disappointed look on Jeremy’s face as he’d sparked the fire that would open the portal to seal his fate, working the flint and steel carefully one-handed, the way Ryan himself had taught him after Jeremy lost his arm.

He never should have shared what he knew about the Nether, about portals or the mobs; he should have just stayed in his laboratory and worked alone. He never should have opened up to them.

He was abruptly snapped out of his self-loathing by the ‘thwip’ of an arrow striking the wall next to his head and a second later, the ground in front of him burst into flame.

“Shit!”

He jumped, panicking and snapping his head around just in time to see second fireball flung at him by another ghast. They had definitely noticed him. He dive-rolled forward, narrowly avoiding the fireball and nimbly rolled to his feet, digging one hand into his sporran as he did so. His fingers curled around the cool, smooth form of an ender pearl and in one swift motion, he pulled it from the pouch and threw it, paying only the barest of attention to ensure it was in a direction of general safety; solid ground and out of range of the ghasts his priority.

The teleport rattled his bones and turned his blood cold before the heat and smell of the nether hit him afresh. The ghasts were far behind him and he was out of their line of sight.

He let out a giddy, adrenaline-fuelled laugh.

A rattling noise behind him made him turn around.

As the skeleton loosed its arrow, Ryan knew it was too late to do anything.

His world exploded into pain and his eyes teared up, mixing with the pervasive acrid fumes to temporarily blind him. His hand shot up to where the arrow struck, where the shaft was still protruding from his right eye, blood and vitreous fluid running down his face, thick and sticky. He heaved and swiped the tears from his left eye, although he could still barely keep it open.

With shaking hands, he reached for his sword, swinging wildly in the direction the skeleton had approached from, only vague outlines of shapes and the rattle of bones to guide him. A second arrow struck him in his right shoulder, glancing off his clavicle and lodging in the muscle of his chest. He almost dropped his sword, but passed it to his left hand instead and lunged forward to meet the skeleton with a roar of fury; knowing a single good strike would be all he needed.

He swung the cumbersome blade clumsily, but with all the strength he could muster overhead, bringing it down diagonally across the skeleton’s torso and sending a loose collection of bones scattering across the netherrack.

Ryan’s eyes had teared up again; he could only hear the sound of his success, a series of dry clicks of bones against stone.

He dropped the sword and fell to his knees, tearing off thick scabs from previous misadventures in the process, but all his focus was on the arrows. His left hand reached up to feel the base of the head of the arrow in his shoulder and he knew it hadn’t gone too deep. He could at very least be thankful that the skeleton archers of the Nether were weaker than those in the Overworld. Carefully, he pried the head free and pulled it out, pressing his hand over the shallow wound left behind to stem the bleeding. He’d broken into a cold sweat, and it felt like all the blood had drained from his body. He shook all over. His right hand tentatively went to his face and his stomach churned as he felt the thick, slimy goop that used to be his eye on his cheek. His fingers brushed the shaft of the arrow and he felt it move inside his eye socket, the tip grazing the bone inside his skull. The sensation alone made him gag, hot bile hitting the back of his throat before he doubled over and emptied the contents of his stomach onto the ground. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten and the small splash of only thin bile and blackened blood confirmed he’d been starving.

_If you haven’t died yet, you have nothing to lose._

He took a deep breath in and let it out and snatched the shaft of the arrow, yanking it ruthlessly from his eye socket. He felt a tug as he pulled it free and he couldn’t quite close his eyelids around it. For a moment it occurred to him it must’ve been the optic nerve, but his vision blurred and the next thing he knew he was on the ground in a puddle of cool, sticky, congealing fluids.

He must’ve passed out. His eyelids were almost glued shut and his face was swollen. Everything hurt. His fingers still grasped the arrow in his right hand.

Slowly, he sat up. There was a tug again as he moved his head from the arrow and he paused, taking a minute to put the pieces together. His optic nerve was still connected to the remains of his eyeball, which had become entangled in the head of the arrow. He swallowed as bile pushed its way to the back of his throat again. There was no hope to save his eye. Not like this; on his own. He’d have to remove it and that meant cutting through the nerve. Nearly blind, he felt along the ground, through the viscous liquid for the other arrow he’d pulled from his shoulder, finding it and running a thumb along the tip. It felt sharp enough. With one hand, he pinched the slimy optic nerve and with the head of the arrow gripped firmly between his thumb and forefinger of the other, he began to sever the nerve, slice by slice. The sensation was like nothing he’d ever experienced before and he retched twice more before he managed to cut through it, the remainder of the nerve retracting back into his now-empty eye socket. Tears were still flowing from the duct, lubricating the space left behind, but his eyelids refused to close over the wound.

_Fuck._

He tore a strip of fabric from the sleeve of his shirt and wadded it into a crude pad to cover his eye, before tearing another long strip and wrapping it around his head to hold the pad in place. He wiped the tears from his left eye and hissed through the pain of trying to blink as the muscles in his right eye adjusted to their new positions.

His head spun. He shifted slightly away from the mess of miscellaneous bodily fluids and lay down on his back on the hard netherrack.

_No one deserves this._

He closed his eyes and hoped he’d pass out again from the pain.

Perhaps fate would take pity on him.


	2. Chapter 2

Ryan once again probed the space in his face where his eye had been with his index finger. Nothing about the wound was clean and he hated it. The side-effects of the salve had kept infection from killing him, but hadn’t stopped his body from repeatedly going into shock, breaking out in fever and cold sweats, or producing the putrid ooze he now tried to wipe from his empty socket. His eyelid flapped limply back into the void.

“I guess this is me now,” he said aloud with a sigh to no one in particular.

He wasn’t sure if it made him feel more or less crazy, but he’d taken to speaking to himself aloud in an attempt to keep track of his thoughts.

He kept expecting to wake up, find it had all been a dream or hallucination. Despite everything he’d been through, his brain still had trouble processing the permanency of what had happened.

He was starting to lose the ability to distinguish what was real, places he’d been, whether or not he still belonged on a physical plane of existence… The constant teleportation wasn’t helping. He needed to try something else. He had a stash of items from fallen enemies he’d encountered and that was about all. A collection of Ender pearls, bones and blaze rods. The arrow that had cost him his eye. The hardened remains of his sclera still clinging to the arrowhead. He scowled at the items in his bag. There was only one thing he could think to make, but he’d never tested it in the Nether and had no idea what effect it would have. He used some of the bones and got to work grinding a blaze rod into powder.

* * *

The shiny green Eye of Ender stared back at him.

It felt wrong somehow. He knew how they were supposed to function in the Overworld to find strongholds containing End portals. Maybe there was a chance they’d work in the Nether.

Some direction was better than no direction.

With nothing to lose, he tossed the eye in the air, waiting for it to ‘catch’ and hover before flying off in the direction of an End portal – or so the legends went. The eye just fell back to earth the same way any item would, catching Ryan a little off-guard and making him flail in an attempt to catch it before it fell onto the rocky netherrack. With his newly reduced depth-perception, he only just managed, skinning his knees for the umpteenth time in the process.

He sighed as he closed his hands protectively over the eye. He could feel it almost humming with energy between his palms; there was a power to it unlike any he’d felt in the Overworld… maybe it was just that they worked differently in the Nether?

_Maybe it was that he was delirious and had actually lost his mind._

He cupped the eye in his hands and it felt smooth and cool, in stark contrast to the warm, pressing air of the Nether. He could  _feel_  the energy radiating from it, he was certain. It felt like it had something to tell him, he just didn’t know how to listen.

Frustrated, he shoved it back in his bag and returned to his trek in search of another portal.

But the eye called to him.

He would find himself rummaging through his bag, not sure of what he was looking for until his hand found the eye. He could feel its energy and he was continuously drawn to it.

It wanted to show him something. He was sure of it.

It felt cool and almost soothing in had hand as he rubbed at his irritated eye socket. He glanced down at the deep blue-green eye, smooth as glass and about the right size. If it wasn’t going to be useful as a guide out of this hellhole, perhaps it could serve another purpose.

He held his eyelids open with thumb and forefinger, as if putting in a contact lens, and gently pressed the eye into the socket. The relief was immediate. The cool, smooth orb soothed the irritated muscle tissue and exposed nerves. His eyelids rested naturally against the ball and with a few attempted blinks and a little lubrication, it even felt like he’d regained some natural movement.

It was a small victory, but the only one he could count in a long time, and one he sorely needed.

* * *

 

He wandered… he’d long since stopped caring how long he’d been gone or how far he’d travelled. He’d stopped thinking about food or water; he just accepted the harsh, painful reality that was in front of him. He should be dead.

It had crossed his mind that maybe he was. This should all be impossible after all. All he could do was keep going for the sake of going.

_Keep moving forward… You’re getting somewhere._

He didn’t know where the idea came from, but he trusted it. It felt right. He felt compelled onwards, sometimes in certain directions more than others, despite the more perilous route they took him. He trusted his instincts and carried on.

He was reaching the point of total exhaustion again. His head was a constant dull ache and he’d been absently scratching at his eye.

_Keep going, you’re so close._

“Close to  _what_?”

He looked down at his hands, blood crusted under his fingernails, he didn’t know from where or when, but there was a fresh, wet smear on his right index finger. His eye was bleeding again. He’d stopped caring. It felt better having the Eye of Ender filling the space and he seemed to be healing around it faster than before.  _Seemed_. He was sick of not having reference to tell.

_Keep going._

“Why? Why should I?”

_Keep going._

He let out a quiet growl of frustration. He was losing it. He had lost it. What was he even looking for?

_We have to get home. We have to fix this._

The thought conjured a memory that rattled his nerves.

 

_“What should we be looking for Ryan?” Jeremy asked, cutting through the thick underbrush of the forest with his sword, Michael by his side, matching his movements._

_Ryan followed behind them, consulting his map, but he wasn’t completely sure where they were going. He folded the map up and shoved it back into his sporran._

_“Mobs,” he replied bluntly. “Creepers, because we need the gunpowder; but I need to collect samples from the hordes.”_

_“They’ve been getting worse around the villages,” Michael noted. “Gavin said another family was attacked last week. Some people were bitten. Had to be dealt with.”_

_The true meaning of the words barely registered to Ryan. “Good thing Jack was around then.”_

_Michael paused. “He wasn’t. Jack was working in Achievement city with Geoff. Gavin dealt with it.”_

_“Poor Gavin,” Jeremy muttered._

_Ryan raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure he could handle it.”_

_Despite being well-intentioned, his words came out cold and callous._

_Michael and Jeremy both held their tongues, but Ryan caught the look they exchanged._

_Ryan knew it was awful, but he wasn’t the sort to dwell on losses or things he couldn’t change. He didn’t have time or patience for politics and bickering, so he ignored it and pressed on._

_“If we’re successful today, I could be that much closer to figuring out a way to vanquish the mobs entirely,” Ryan said, trying to gently nudge them back to task._

_“I’m more interested in where they came from to begin with,” Jeremy professed. “Why are they suddenly all up around Achievement City? We used to hardly see them and even then only a long way from the cities.”_

_Ryan’s breath caught in his throat, but he relaxed again as Michael continued._

_“It won’t matter much if we can eradicate them.”_

_Ryan paused, perching on a tree stump, retrieving his map once more and trying to figure which way was meant to be north. Michael and Jeremy continued on, scouting ahead in different directions._

_As the forest around him grew more silent, Ryan’s thoughts drifted back to the hordes. There had always been mobs in the woods, in the darkness, but not like this. This was different, unnatural. This was his doing. If anyone found out he was the one who’d unleashed the hordes on Achievement City, not only would they take his crown, they’d be out for his blood. It was up to him to fix it before that bit of information could come to light._

_“Ryan!” Jeremy’s shriek pierced the silence and Ryan knew the instant he heard it that something was very wrong._

 

The scream was so vivid that it snapped him back to reality. He shook his head in an attempt to clear the sleepless haze.

“Ryan!”

That time he could’ve sworn he heard Jeremy’s voice.

Actually heard it. Not just in his head. Had he progressed to full-blown hallucinations now?

“Ry-an?”

_That was definitely Jeremy’s voice._

He nearly tripped over his feet as he scrambled across the rocky surface in the direction of Jeremy’s voice.

“Jeremy!” Ryan tried to call out, but the word stuck in his throat, too dry and hoarse to carry the sound. It barely came out as more than a pathetic squeak. For a fleeting second he felt sorry for himself.  

_Just over that ridge._

He forced himself on; expending all the remaining energy he had, pushing himself up the incline, willing his muscles to carry him forward. As he crested the hill, he caught glimpse of a momentary flash of distinct purple shimmer.

“It can’t be…” he stuttered, mouth hanging open. He rubbed is good eye with the back of his hand and blinked a few times.

_It is._

* * *

 

As soon as he’d glimpsed the purple glow, it was gone. The obsidian archway stood proud, but empty. Nearby, there was a chest, open and bare; its contents long ago removed by someone in need.

By him.

It was the same portal he had been sent through.

But had been  _open_.

He was sure of it. He had seen it, only for a second, but it was there; a purple glow and flicker.

And he had heard Jeremy’s voice… hadn’t he?

_Why would he be calling for you?_

“I don’t know…”

_Why would they still be looking for you? You should be dead, remember? Why would they be looking for you at all? They banished you to die here._

“I… I don’t know…”

Crestfallen and exhausted, Ryan trudged to the empty black portal, inspecting it carefully. In the dim light of the Nether, nothing looked changed.

Maybe he was crazy.

His eye itched.

The last push to get over the hill left him feeling completely drained; he had nothing left in him. He slumped against the heavy stone archway and shut his eyes, wiping the weeping exudate from the right side of his face. At least the swelling had mostly gone down.

He wasn’t safe. The area was completely exposed and built almost entirely of volatile netherrack, but Ryan was beyond caring. He couldn’t leave the portal, especially if it had been open. Which he was becoming less and less convinced was true.

“Just wishful thinking,” he muttered to himself as he relaxed against the portal, feeling the gentle but persistent tug of sleep dragging him back into the depths of unconsciousness.

 

For the first time he could remember, not just since being in the Nether, he dreamed.

_…Jeremy had been bitten. Panic had cut through Ryan like a knife. As soon as he saw the bite, he’d told Michael what needed to be done. To his credit, Michael hadn’t hesitated. Ryan’s blood ran cold as Jeremy’s arm hit the ground with a dull, wet, thump. The change had already started and only a few seconds later the flesh of the amputated arm was almost completely necrotic around the bite._

_In retrospect, Ryan should have taken it as a sample._

_Meanwhile, Michael retraced Jeremy’s steps to deal with the zombie that had attacked him, hacking it to pieces in an act of bloody retribution._

_Jeremy was stoic and Ryan was proud of him in a strange way as he made a tourniquet out of Jeremy’s belt._

_“I’m sorry Jeremy, but this is really going to hurt.”_

_“I’d give you a hand… but well… you see…” Jeremy joked through clenched teeth._

_“You’re a bit short?” Ryan retorted with a grim smile._

_Jeremy hissed as Ryan tightened the belt more to stem the bleeding. “Really? Short jokes? A bit below the belt there…”_

_Ryan scoffed a laugh. “If you hadn’t noticed,_ nothing’s _below the belt anymore.”_

_Jeremy actually laughed. “Too soon man, too soon.”_

_Jeremy’s face went pale and he looked like he might pass out. Ryan put an arm around him and propped him up under his shoulder, starting to help him walk out, knowing they’d have limited time to work._

_“Ryan?” Jeremy’s voice quavered. “I don’t know if I’m gonna make it.”_

_“We’ll get you back to Achievement City, Geoff and Jack can take a look at you. Get a few healing potions into you and you’ll be good as new.”_

_Ryan noticed a green tinge was beginning to form around the tourniquet. He swallowed._

_Jeremy’s eyes met Ryan’s and he followed Ryan’s gaze._

_“Ryan?” Jeremy sounded so scared and Ryan’s heart sank._

_“I’ll find a cure.” All trace of humour left Ryan’s voice. “I promise; I won’t let you die like this.”_

_It was a promise he couldn’t keep._

“Ryan?”

The distinctive hum of the portal wasn’t what woke him, but it filled his consciousness and snapped him back to reality where a rough hand was squeezing his shoulder.

“Ryan!”

Jeremy’s voice was what had woken him.

He opened his eyes slowly, blinking. The Ender eye felt somehow more mobile in its socket, as if it was following the movements of his left. Maybe it was just that the muscles were healing around it.

His vision came back into focus and Jeremy’s worried face greeted him.

He was still dreaming. He had to be.

“Ryan, can you hear me? Holy shit Ryan… what happened?”

Ryan opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out.

_What do you think happened? You banished me to the Nether._

No, that wasn’t what he was going to say… He shook his head and rubbed at his eye.

“Ryan, don’t move; I’m going to get help.”

 _No!_  He tried to scream at Jeremy not to leave, but again, no words came out, just a distressed yelp that he would’ve been embarrassed about under any other circumstance.

“I’ll be right back, I promise.”

Then Jeremy was gone.

He was still dreaming. He had to be.

He rubbed his eyes again. The purple glow from the portal seeming to illuminate everything he could see. The world had taken on a sort of soft purple haze.

He wanted to turn around, to pull himself through the portal while it was open, but he hardly had the strength to form the thought. How pathetic.

A few moments later, Jeremy returned; Jack and Michael in tow.

Ryan could barely move. He looked up at them, still not entirely convinced any of this was real.

Jack’s face immediately contorted with pity. “Oh Ryan, what have you done to yourself?”

Ryan could hardly imagine how pathetic he must have looked; filthy, face bruised, streaked with blood and weeping fluids. The dark blue-green orb filling his right socket a stark contrast to his own icy blue, bloodshot eye. His clothes were torn and tattered from where he’d fallen onto sharp netherrack, or where he’d ripped off strips to make bandages. His kilt was singed black in places and while the soft leather of his boots had held together, they were marked by burns and scratches. His hair fell about his face and matted to his head and he couldn’t imagine how he must’ve smelled to them.

“We need healing potions. Tell Geoff to get something ready,” Jack instructed Jeremy, who nodded and took off running through the portal.

Ryan was drifting out of consciousness again as Michael and Jack took an arm each and hauled him to an upright position between them, dragging him through the portal to the Overworld. He felt the cold embrace of the portal’s purple glow and the next thing he knew, the world grew dark again.


	3. Chapter 3

_"Gavin! Run! Tell Geoff and Jack to prep and stock the lab, I need healing potions!” Ryan cried out as he half-carried a barely-conscious Jeremy back towards Achievement City, “Raid the vault if you have to!”_

_“Bloody hell! Ryan, what happened?”_

_“Just get the others!” Ryan snapped._

_Gavin jumped and ran for it; the lad was light and quick on his feet, he’d scramble the others. Ryan was going to need all the help he could get._

_“Stay with me Jeremy, we’re almost there, ‘k buddy?”_

_Jeremy’s eyes fluttered open and closed again, letting Ryan guide him forward, feet stumbling over each other as he pushed on._

_“Hold on Jeremy.”_

_Just as they crossed the threshold of Ryan’s house, Jeremy went limp in his arms, pulling both of them to the ground. It took Ryan far too long to realise the reason he was struggling to maintain his grip was the thick layer of blood coating his hands and most of Jeremy’s left side. In a feat of sheer determination, he scooped Jeremy’s body off the ground, slinging his right arm around his neck and carried him down to his laboratory. Geoff and Jack were already clearing space on the smooth marble slab he used as his examination table._

_Ryan laid Jeremy out on the table and ran is hands through his hair, pushing it out of his face and streaking it with Jeremy’s blood. He hardly noticed it at the time, but Geoff and Jack both cringed and looked away, busying themselves with retrieving materials for making potions of healing and bandages._

_Ryan’s thoughts raced._

               This is my fault. I have to fix it. I made a promise.

 

When Ryan came to, his head was resting on something soft. He felt rough fingers holding his right eyelids open and a moist swab or something wiping around his eye; although he couldn’t smell it, it must have been soaked in some kind of alcohol solution because it left a mild burning sensation. Even though his left eye was shut, he could have sworn he could make out light and faint traces of movement tinged in purple.

He cringed and blinked his eye open, the fingers holding his right eyelids withdrawing in surprise.

“Ryan, don’t try to move. We’re taking care of you, ok?” Jack’s voice – it sounded like Jack’s voice – came from somewhere above him.

Two firm hands pressed gently into his shoulders to hold him still, although Ryan found he couldn’t move if he had tried; it was like some kind of sleep paralysis. His eye refused to focus, the figures in the room appearing as dark silhouettes against the glow of torch light and glowstone. For a moment he had thought they were endermen and his heart skipped a beat, thinking he was still in the Nether; but the familiar voices brought him back to reality.

“Ryan, we already gave you a potion for sleep, but it doesn’t seem to be working, so we’re going to give you some more.”

Ryan would have protested if he could have, more out of instinct than any cognitive process, but as it was, he couldn’t. He swallowed the potion as best he could, Jack supporting his head as Geoff carefully poured it. It didn’t take long to come into effect, tipping him over the edge of oblivion once more. He could at least appreciate being back in the realms of sleep, something he’d been deprived of for so long…

_If only he could stop the dreams._

He rarely dreamed. Or at least, he had none that he could remember upon waking. Although, he supposed these didn’t really count as dreams. More like memories. Vivid, living memories…

 

_Days had passed since Jeremy had been bitten and while he was physically mended by the cocktail of potions of healing and strength and recovery that Ryan had concocted for him, he was still succumbing to the effects of the bite. He was transitioning._

_“We need more healing draughts,” Ryan said to Geoff for what felt like the seventeenth time in the hour._

_Geoff shook his head. “Ryan, you gotta stop this. You gotta tell him.”_

_Ryan slammed his fist against the workbench, sending a shock through his bones and causing the vials and bottles scattered about the wooden slab to jump and rattle. He looked up at Geoff, his eyes rimmed red. He’d barely slept, been working around the clock to try to come up with something, anything that could reverse the necrotizing effects of the bite._

_“We just need more healing draughts; it’ll buy us more time…”_

Timeskip.

Suddenly he wasn’t at his workbench anymore; he was at Jeremy’s bedside.

Dreams were strange.

_“Ryan, I don’t think they’re gonna help at this stage, buddy…” Jeremy said sadly, putting his hand on Ryan’s shoulder, his skin a pale green, almost mossy at the extremities and beginning to show signs of decay._

_Ryan put a hand over Jeremy’s and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Then I’m going to find something that will.”_

_“It’s ok. It’s not your fault…”_

_Ryan’s chest tightened._ Yes, it was.

He closed his eyes and when he opened them they were wet with tears. He could see concoctions and tinctures and salves and potions on the workbench in front of him, but the overwhelming feeling of guilt completely consumed him. Only hours earlier, Geoff had told him Jeremy didn’t have long, said he should make some time to go see him, say his goodbyes. But he had refused.

_“I’m so close, I can make it, I know it.”_

_“Ryan, he’s been asking for you. I think he wants to say goodbye…”_

_“Tell him no,” he’d snapped back. “He’s not dying today.”_

_“Ryan…”_

_“No, Geoff!”_

Jack had left with a sigh and a heartbroken expression.

Less than two hours later, Jack had come to tell him that Jeremy had died.

_“He was brave. Right to the end. Said green always was his colour.”_

_Ryan didn’t respond, paralysed by the news, by the realisation he’d been too late, by the helplessness he felt._

_“He asked for you. He said to say goodbye and thank you for trying. He said he’d miss you.” Jack’s tone was stern, bordering angry. No doubt he was furious with him._

_Ryan’s hands were shaking. He leaned his elbows into the desk and gripped his head in his hands, scrunching his hair under his fingers. It hit him all at once and suddenly he was sobbing. Tears streaming freely down his face._

What have I done?

 

Ryan awoke strapped to a cold metal table, his wrists and ankles secured by wide leather cuffs. It took him a moment to regain his bearings.

He was in his lab.

A cold chill ran down his spine.

He was on his experimenting table. The one he had custom-built after Jeremy was bitten. After Jeremy died. The same one that made Gavin suspicious of his request for volunteers from the village. The same one that ultimately led to his betrayal.

Even at his most vulnerable, they didn’t trust him. What did that say about him?

_That they’re afraid of you… and so they should be._

They say Karma works in mysterious ways, but sometimes it’s just ham-fisted.

 

* * *

 

The pain was the first thing that registered after the shock of realising where he was. His whole body ached dully, his face stung, especially around his eye. He tried to reach up instinctively, but his wrists were caught in the cuffs by his sides. He tested them, attempting to squirm free, pulling against the restraints, when he heard movement behind him. He twisted his head around and was just able to make out Jeremy’s form, sitting against the far wall in the chair he used to observe from…

When Ryan was the one performing the experiments.

“Jeremy!”

Jeremy stood up, but didn’t come any closer. He seemed unsure, shifting his weight from foot to foot, almost as if he’d been caught off-guard.

“It’s for your own good Ryan,” he started hesitantly. “You were clawing at your face, scratched yourself up real good… I’ll get the others. Let them know you’re awake.” Jeremy slid through the heavy iron door to the stairway, immediately pulling it closed behind him without waiting for a response.

“Jeremy, wait!” Ryan called after him, but he was already out of earshot. 

Shit.

He could feel the wounds on his face stinging. He must’ve been scratching, maybe Jeremy had been telling the truth. But then why had he left so suddenly? He seemed almost afraid of him.

That thought alone twisted something inside him. The same way it had when he found out Jeremy had sided with Gavin.

It hurt.

It didn’t hurt like a betrayal, not like Gavin’s did. It wasn’t something that spurred him to rage and action; but rather, it made him doubt himself, his motives, his reasoning, his trust.

Jeremy was the only person he’d ever truly trusted.

They’d both let each other down.

_Jack and Geoff had led the construction of the funeral pyre for Jeremy’s body. It would have to be burned to prevent the reanimation process._

_Meanwhile, Ryan had rapidly switched gears. He was no longer searching for a cure, a way to prevent the turn, he was looking for something that would change the process of reanimation; something that would stop the infection as the body healed itself. He was frustrated by how little he understood about the turn; he should have done more research. He just needed more time._

_When Jack told him they were about to light the pyre, he snapped._

_“You can’t! I need him! I can fix this!”_

_He’d run full-sprint to where it was set up and thrown himself over Jeremy’s body._

_“I’m so close, Geoff,” Ryan pleaded, his blue eyes rimmed red and bloodshot from lack of sleep. “Please. There’s still time. Just let me try.”_

_Geoff frowned but he remained gentle. “He’s gone, buddy. You gotta accept it.”_

_Ryan shook his head adamantly. “I can bring him back.” There was an edge of hysteria in his voice._

_“He’s going to come back anyway, Ryan, and when he does you know it’s not gonna be Lil J anymore. I’m sorry. That’s just how it works.”_

_“Then just give me that long. The change takes at least 24 hours. Just one more day. I’ll put him down myself if I can’t bring him back.” The words sounded desperate, the empty promise spoken with complete conviction that he couldn’t fail._

_“Ryan?” Gavin had spoken up. “I’ll help, ok?”_

_“Me too,” Michael had added._

_Gavin and Michael’s offers to help came from a place of love; there was a sense of solidarity among the lads, and with their youngest dead, the guilt must have been eating into them too. Even if it wasn’t their fault._

_Ryan accepted, knowing he would be racing against the clock and would need all the help he could get._

_It was down to the wire. The salve had required a ghast tear. Ryan had shown Gavin and Michael how to enter the Nether to retrieve it. Explained how ghasts could shoot fireballs that could be thrown back at them with a well-timed swing of their swords. They were confused by how he knew all this, but followed his directions. For Jeremy…_

 

Jeremy hadn’t returned. Ryan glanced down at his emaciated body. His clothes had been removed, ruined and filthy as they were, but he had mercifully been covered with a deep crimson woolen blanket. He could still feel the cold metal of the table against the skin of his back and legs, so clearly the blanket had been an afterthought.

Now that he was in proper light and not covered by a layer of grime and soot, he could see how much of his body had sustained burns, scrapes, bruises and more serious injury. What was uncovered by the blanket was a patchwork of stitches, bandages and sickly white skin. His body was in various stages of repair, but he was still amazed he’d survived any of it.  

He was painfully thin, weak and famished, but he knew it would be days before he’d be able to stomach a proper meal…

_If they even allow you that._

His heart skipped a beat at the thought.

He had no idea what his reception had been. Jack and Geoff had been there when he woke up, examining him, and he had clearly been given medical attention. His open wounds had been stitched and cleaned and he’d clearly been given at least a potion of healing, otherwise he doubted he’d be conscious, but he didn’t know the intention of the others.

_Why would they have been looking for him in the first place?_

_Did they need him for something?_

_Or was it just Jeremy?_

_Did they intend to send him back to the Nether once they were done with whatever they needed him for?_

The thought struck fear into his very soul. He’d done his time. He’d done enough time for anyone. He couldn’t go back there. He’d do whatever they asked of him. He’d sooner die.

_Would you really?_

_I’m not going back there. Never._

_Oh, but you will._

He wasn’t sure where the idea had come from, but he couldn’t shake it. He was starting to question his sanity when the door creaked open behind him.

 

* * *

 

Jack, Geoff, Michael and Jeremy entered the room. Ryan noted Michael was armed, but the others didn’t seem concerned. The state he was in, he doubted any of them considered him a threat.

_That wasn’t what you thought when you first woke up. They still fear you. And rightly so…_

Ryan blinked a few times, he was just confused. He tried to banish the idea from his mind.

“How are you feeling Ryan?” Jeremy asked gently.

_How do you think?_

“Not great.” Ryan shook his head, ignoring the obnoxious intrusive thoughts. “And my brain is real not-alright.”

Geoff nodded. “The sleeping draughts have that effect when they’re wearing off too…”

Jack rolled his eyes, humming disappointed agreement.

Ryan wasn’t sure how to respond and the others were quiet. A beat of uncomfortable silence passed between them.

“Is this… uh...” Ryan tried to lift his hands, motioning to the restraints. “…really necessary?”

“You gonna try anything?” Michael asked bluntly, hand resting casually on the hilt of his sword, a reminder that even if he’d wanted to, there was no way he’d get away with it.

Ryan shook his head. He didn’t even have the energy to add a sarcastic remark. He wanted this nightmare to be over.

_Whatever that involved._

“Good call,” Geoff said as Jack got to work undoing the restraints.

“It was for your own good,” Jeremy reminded him, a hint of defensiveness in his voice.

Ryan tried to sit up, but Jack pushed him down again. “Just give it a minute.”

Ryan instead pulled the blanket up to cover more of his body, aware of the eyes on his wounds. On his eye.

Jack winced. “You’ve been through a lot, clearly.”

“Clearly,” he echoed, trying not to think of the injuries he’d sustained, his hand finally coming up to feel his face around his right eye. It was swollen, and he could feel raised skin where he’d been scratching at it; Jeremy had been telling the truth, but he could guess there were other reasons they’d wanted him restrained.

_You terrify them._

He had trouble believing that. Still, there was something in the way the others looked at him. There was something true there. They were cautious, and not for the reasons he was banished…

“We cleaned it up as best we could but we uh… we couldn’t do much for it,” Geoff confessed, looking away.

Ryan felt the hard orb behind his eyelid. It almost felt like it was pulsing. He quickly pulled his hand away.

“What happened?” Jeremy asked after an awkward silence.

 _What do you_ think _happened?_

There was a malicious edge to the voice in his head, one he wasn’t sure was entirely his own.

_What is happening to me?_

_You’re losing it, Haywood._

 

_“Keep it together, Haywood.” Ryan muttered the words to himself._

_His hands were shaking as he worked. The lads had barely been gone an hour and already Ryan was beginning to question whether they’d be able to make it out of the Nether ok._

_“You can do this,” he reminded himself sternly._

_His work was riding on it._

_Jeremy’s_  life _was riding on it._

His mouth was dry. “Skeleton,” was all that came out. He blurted it out compulsively, more to silence the voice in his head than to placate the others’ curiosity.

No one pressed it. The way it sounded, he figured they must have assumed it had been traumatising enough. He certainly didn’t want to relive it in any great detail, his thoughts already tracking back to the feeling of the arrowhead lodged in his eye…

After another long silence, Ryan finally found the words he wanted to say.

“Why were you looking for me?”

The others looked at each other, as if unsure of who would answer.

_They know._

_Know what?_

_What you’ve suspected all along._

_That I… the salve…? It couldn’t be._

_Why else would they come back for you? They need something…_

Frustrated by their hesitation and now suspicious, Ryan snapped at them.

“Why didn’t you just leave me in the Nether to die?”

Jack looked hurt, like he was offended he could think such a thing. “We weren’t going to leave you to die, Ryan. We opened the portal after three days to come get you, but you were gone.”

“We’ve been keeping a daily watch since,” Jeremy added.

Michael, Geoff and Jack exchanged a guilty look that even in his exhausted state, Ryan didn’t fail to notice. Ryan wondered who ‘we’ really consisted of.

“But why were you  _still_  looking for me? After all this time?”

Jeremy looked at him quizzically. “How long do you think you’ve been gone?”

Ryan shrugged. “Maybe three months?”

“Ryan… You’ve been gone less than three  _weeks_.”

_Really? That’s all it takes, huh?_

“No…” Ryan couldn’t comprehend that, he’d been there an eternity. “…it’s been…  _surely_  it’s been longer than that.”

Jeremy shook his head slowly. “Seventeen days. We were starting to get really worried. We didn’t know if you’d found supplies or been killed…”

_You should still be dead._

“Honestly, we’re all kind of amazed you survived,” Geoff said, Jack nodding beside him in agreement, Jeremy’s eyes fixed on the floor.

Ryan’s stomach twisted as he caught the look on Michael’s face.

He knew.

 

_Ryan had fallen asleep next to Jeremy’s body when Michael and Gavin returned from the Nether with the ghast tear. He awoke, confused, to Michael screaming at him._

_“Jesus Christ Ryan, what if he’d come back while you were sleeping? You didn’t even have a sword!”_

_Ryan ignored him, rubbing his eyes and snatching up their bag as he pushed past them to his workbench._

_“You got it then?”_

_Michael glared at him. “Yeah, we got it.”_

_“It is terrifying in there, Ryan. How long have you known how to open those portals?” Gavin asked raising an eyebrow._

_Ryan was focused intently on his work, but the conversation was still registering._

_“A while,” he muttered._

_“Do you think other things can come through them?”_

_“Yes,” he admitted, “now shut up for a minute.”_

_Gavin’s mouth snapped shut, but he shot a look at Michael that Ryan just caught. It didn’t register at the time, but it alluded to the conversation they must have had in the Nether. Where Gavin started to question Ryan’s work and where the mobs had come from. Where he started putting it all together._

_But Ryan was focused. This was it._

_He worked quickly and after a few minutes, produced the finished pot of thick, foul-smelling cream._

_“A salve?” Gavin exclaimed, eyes wide, matching the grin spreading over his face. “You’re kidding right?”_

_Ryan wasn’t amused, just tired. “It’s like a balm;” he explained, “just rub it into the affected areas.”_

_“So… his whole body?” Michael raised an eyebrow, glancing at Jeremy’s body on the table._

_“…pretty much.” Ryan shrugged, holding out the pot for the lads._

_Gavin shook his head, still grinning. “Leave it to you to make a resurrection salve, Ryan.”_

_“What? It’s not like I could get him to drink a potion!” The faintest trace of a smile cracked at the edge of his lips, fuelled by the tiniest bit of hope._

_“…well, you do have a point there.” Michael grinned back._

_The salve was going to be potent. Had had no idea if it would work, or what the effects might be. Theoretically, it should be able to hijack the body’s healing factors and restore health. With some luck that would stop the infection and allow Jeremy to heal as it began the reanimation process, if they were very lucky it would allow him to regrow his arm. If they were exceptionally lucky, it may grant them a form of immortality, the rate of cellular repair exceeding that of damage… If they were unlucky, it could be another dead end. If he was exceptionally unlucky, it would grant them immortality – but not resurrect Jeremy. He couldn’t take that risk. But he could ask Michael and Gavin to._

_The lads worked to apply the salve while Ryan maintained a careful distance._

_It took longer than he expected. Michael and Gavin kept reassuring him he just needed to give it more time._

_Any second now, Jeremy could return, but not as Lil J, as one of them._

_If that happened, he’d said he would deal with it himself. He’d promised Geoff. It was another one he couldn’t keep._

_He didn’t know how much more time they had._

 

He ran his hands through his hair and took a few deep breaths.

“So… what now?”


	4. Chapter 4

“My King.” The young messenger bowed deeply and waited to be signalled before proceeding. Gavin tipped his head ever so slightly and the messenger went on.

“Master Ramsey said to send for you. He’s been recovered.”

Gavin could hardly contain the surprise that crossed his face. “Alive?”

The messenger nodded. “Yes, your Majesty. Surely, something of a miracle. Although he was gravely injured. The others are tending his wounds presently. None are fatal.”

“Of course,” Gavin replied, nodding and chewing his lip absently. “Thank you. I’ll join them when my business is done here.”

Gavin’s stomach flipped at the thought of Ryan being found. The people would riot if they found out. There was a chance this could do some serious damage to his reputation… if the others believed him. If he hadn’t already been driven insane in the Nether. If the others even listened to him at all.

That was a lot of “ifs”. It wouldn’t do to get ahead of himself just yet. He would just have to wait and see how it played out.

 

* * *

_“The people demand blood.” Jack explained, pressing both palms into the large circular wooden table they were gathered around. “They want an execution; if we keep him locked up they’re eventually going to raid the dungeons to seek justice themselves.”_

_A heavy silence filled the room. Michael’s head bobbed in quiet acknowledgement of the words and next to him, Gavin pressed his lips together in thought. Geoff bowed his head slightly, avoiding eye contact._

_Jeremy shook his head. “It’s_ Ryan _. We can’t just execute him.”_

_“We can’t do nothing,” Michael noted bluntly. “Jack’s right, they’ll riot.”_

_“Let ‘em,” Jeremy snapped._

_Geoff frowned, a genuine look of pain crossing his face. “Little J, I-” He grimaced. “…I don’t think you should be here for this.”_

_Jeremy’s eyes grew wide. “You can’t seriously be considering this!”_

_Geoff kept his tone gentle but firm, putting a hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. “I’m not saying we execute him, but Michael’s right; we have to do something, and if we don’t they’ll come for him and the people won’t be so forgiving.”_

_Michael and Gavin exchanged a curious look before Gavin spoke up._

_“Lil J’s right. We can’t kill Ryan… but we can make it look that way.”_

_Jack’s eyebrow quirked. “What’re you thinking, Gavin?”_

_“Something a little more theatrical…” Gavin rubbed his chin pensively. “We’ve given prisoners the option to choose their method of execution before, yeah?”_

_Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah…?”_

_“What do you reckon Ryan would say to that?”_

_Michael scoffed. Jeremy balked._

_“He’d tell you to ‘fuck off’, that’s what,” Geoff said without missing a beat._

_“Exactly. Now, what if, when he refused, we banished him?”_

_Jack shook his head. “A banishment isn’t going to save him, the villagers will tear him apart before he can leave the kingdom.”_

_Gavin smirked. “Not if we banish him to the Nether. Send him back to where the monsters came from. It’s practically a death sentence anyway. The villagers get the show they want, and we don’t have to kill Ryan.”_

_“That_ is _a death sentence!” Jeremy yelled unexpectedly loud in protest. “You’ve seen what it’s like in there, none of us would last a week!”_

_“So we don’t leave him,” Gavin explained. “We come back after the show, get him back.”_

_Michael nodded, the plan making itself clear. “Then what?”_

* * *

 

“What comes next?” Ryan repeated his question, more in earnest this time.

His words echoed off the walls of the lab, met with an uncomfortable silence as Geoff and Jack exchanged a look. Ryan could tell he wasn’t going to like whatever it was.

Michael spoke up when the others failed to, curt and hard, avoiding eye contact. “Gavin said if you were found, you were to be transferred to the dungeons.”

Of course. He was still a criminal. Although it was better than being in the Nether.

Anything was better than being in the Nether.

_They still need you for something._

He couldn’t help but agree with that feeling.

“We wanted to make sure you were ok first. You weren’t going to up and die on us…” Jack started.

Ryan cut him off sarcastically. “How thoughtful.”

“Shut up, Ryan,” Geoff muttered, clearly uncomfortable with the whole situation.

Ryan scoffed, ignoring him. “Naturally, that’s Gavin’s suggestion… where is the smarmy little bastard anyway?”

“Attending to his duties with his people,” Michael spat.

“Ah, of course, the  _people_.”

“It’s more than you ever did, Ryan!” Jack snapped suddenly. “You’re lucky Jeremy and Michael were so adamant about finding you. You don’t even know the extent of the damage you caused by letting those  _things_ into the city! How many lives you cost.”

Jack was fuming and for a second Ryan remembered how much of his punishment he truly deserved.

He bit his tongue.

He was too weak to argue at any rate.

“Fine,” he muttered. “I’ll go.”

“Not like you had a choice,” Michael mumbled under his breath.

“Can you walk?” Jeremy asked in earnest, preparing to support him. It wasn’t a long walk from his lab to the rear entrance of the fortress, and it was possible to remain entirely unseen by those who weren’t looking, but the cobblestone stairs leading down to the dank dungeons were treacherous and often slippery with moss.

“Well enough.”

Despite the confidence in his words, his stride was significantly lacking, and Jeremy and Geoff supported his weight the majority of the trip.

It was dark and eerie, the only light cast by burning oil torches that were mounted at the bottom of the stairs, throwing dramatic, flickering shadows on the walls. Even in the dim light, Ryan could see that the dungeons had been cleared out; all the cells left unlocked and open. Ryan didn’t bother asking what had become of the other prisoners. Each cell was self-contained; iron bars from the floor to the low ceiling on three sides, cold stone wall at the back where a small, slanted trench functioned as a waste receptacle, and iron manacles were mounted well above even Ryan’s head height. He eyed them suspiciously and looked to Geoff, who gave the slightest shake of his head as if reading his mind. Ryan breathed a small sigh of relief. There was a sack on the ground, providing a makeshift bed, padded thinly with hay or straw judging from the loose mess around it. The way he’d dealt with prisoners had been called “inhumane” by some of his critics, but if he was honest with himself, after his banishment to the Nether, it was comparatively inviting.

Michael roughly pushed him inside the cell and swung the barred door closed behind him, Jack securing the lock.

“We’ll be back with food and water …at some point,” Michael said. “And Gavin will want to see you, I’d imagine.”

Ryan’s eyes narrowed, but he remained quiet.

“Get comfy,” Jack said. “I have a feeling you’ll be here a long while.”

“You’re just gonna leave me here then?” Ryan asked.

“That’s the plan,” Michael said brightly, pointedly turning his back to leave, the others following suit.

Ryan’s heart skipped a beat.

“Wait!” He called out, a sudden sense of desperation to his voice at the thought of being left alone again. The others paused, glancing back at him, waiting. “Why did you come back for me? Really? What made you think I wouldn’t have just wandered off to die somewhere? I had no reason to think you’d look for me after what you did to me… After what _I_  did.”

The others looked at each other, confused.

Jeremy stepped forward, letting the torchlight light his face. “We told you we’d be back. We left you supplies. We left a  _note_ … the chest by the portal…”

“…was nearly empty.” Ryan cut in, shaking his head. “Only the remaining supplies from one of my previous field studies…”

Jeremy’s face turned to stone, the rage building just beneath the surface, still obscured by the confusion. Jack and Geoff looked puzzled and Michael looked mildly annoyed, but not surprised like the others. Ryan turned his attention back to Jeremy. “What is going on, Jeremy?”

Jeremy’s jaw clenched, his eyes dark. “ _Gavin_.”

 

 

_Despite Jeremy’s recovery - except for his arm, which Ryan explained wasn’t likely to grow back - Gavin hadn’t been able to sleep. He often didn’t sleep well. Since the mobs had started invading the city and they had started sharing quarters, Michael had noted on many occasions Gavin would wake, restless at night and pace about the room, as if trying to solve some unfathomable puzzle._

_This time, Gavin was clearly on edge; staring at the ceiling rather than sleeping and pacing the room intermittently._

_“What’s the matter, Gav?” Michael asked gently, expecting a generic feeling of unease at Jeremy’s resurrection. Much like the one he was feeling himself._

_“You heard what Ryan said, Michael?” Gavin asked, voice quiet. “When I asked if he thought other things could come through the portals… He said ‘yes’. He didn’t even bloody hesitate.”_

_A chill crept down Michael’s spine. He had heard him say it, but he hadn’t made the connection until now._

_“I think…” Gavin went on, “I think he’s the reason for the mobs; I think he caused this.”_

_Michael frowned. “You know, I don’t think you’re wrong there. I don’t think it was_ deliberate _, but yeah… I think you’re right.”_

 _“What if it_ was _deliberate, Michael?”_

_Michael chewed his lip. “I dunno… Ryan’s a little eccentric sometimes, but I don’t think he’s malicious. There’s no way he could’ve known it would come to this. Besides, you saw how he was with Jeremy. It damn near broke his heart.”_

_“What if it wasn’t meant to be_ Jeremy _, Michael?”_

_The way Gavin let the words hang in the air made Michael shiver again._

_“You’re probably just overthinking it. You should try to get some sleep.”_

 

 

“Gavin left the note, I saw him,” Michael attested.

“ _Where_  did he leave it?” Ryan asked, wrapping both hands around the bars of the cell.

“In the chest by the portal!”

Ryan shook his head. “It wasn’t there.”

Jeremy shot a look at Michael that could’ve burned a hole through him. “I told you, Michael! I knew Ryan wouldn’t just wander off if he’d known!”

“I  _saw_  Gavin write the note, Jeremy!” Michael shot back. “I saw him leave it!”

“Alright, that’s enough!” Geoff roared over them.

Everyone fell silent for a moment.

Ryan’s eyes flicked between Michael and Jeremy. “I take it this isn’t the first time they’ve had that argument,” he ventured calmly.

Jack and Geoff both shook their heads.

“Okay,” Ryan said, letting his head fall forward against the bars with a quiet thump. “You say you saw him leave it in the chest, Michael? Not  _on_  it?”

Michael hesitated. “I think… I think he left it in the chest. Could’ve been on it. …I’m not sure.”

“Maybe, if he left it on the chest, something got to it, or wind blew it away or something?” Jack suggested. “It could’ve been an accident, or a misunderstanding?”

_Or Gavin never left a note at all…_

Ryan knew anything left in the Nether outside of a chest would be destroyed in a matter of seconds upon leaving it. Nothing lasted in the Nether. It was an easy and forgivable mistake to make.

_If Gavin hadn’t known._

…When had he told Gavin? He racked his brain, but he wouldn’t recall. He remembered the words coming from his mouth, he recalled standing in the purple glow of the portal and saying:

_“Nothing from our world survives outside of chests in the Nether.”_

Was Michael there when he’d said it? He couldn’t remember anything other than those words in that moment.

Ryan shook his head, absently scratching his eye; frustrated he couldn’t get a lock on the idea. His time in the Nether had scrambled his senses… maybe he had lost his mind.

“Maybe…” was all he could think to respond. “I don’t know.” He shrugged, apathetic and defeated. His head ached. There was nothing more to be done for him at this point anyway, even if Gavin had betrayed him further. He sank down on the pathetic excuse of a bed, folding his legs underneath him.

“Ryan…” Jeremy started gently, sympathetically, but Geoff cleared his throat in such a way that Jeremy’s jaw snapped shut before he could say any more.

“Well, have a think about it. We’ll talk to Gavin when he’s back,” Geoff said curtly.

Ryan vaguely wondered when that might be. Gavin could be gone for days or weeks at a time, attending matters in the Kingdom he deemed more important than them.

Jack tossed him a water skin. “We’ll send someone in the morning with food.”

Jeremy gave him one last, long look, something akin to pain in his eyes. He tried to look hopeful for him, but he doubted he’d pulled it off.

Ryan sighed and leaned back against the bars on one side of the cell, listening to the echoes of their footsteps off the stone stairs until they faded to nothing and he was left in complete silence and darkness.

Maybe he’d actually get some sleep for once.

 

* * *

 

 

Every time Ryan dozed off, he awoke with a start. Every muscle in his body primed for action. Like he was in some kind of imminent danger.

Like there were monsters nearby.

He gave up at some point, assuming it’d be coming into the early hours of the morning soon. He stood up and walked the perimeter of his cell, running one hand along the bars, appreciating the thrum of the metal against his fingers.

When he was first dethroned, this is what they intended to do to him… the dungeons were of course, more occupied at the time. It would have been far too dangerous to imprison him here. They’d kept him locked in his laboratory, as much for his own safety as confinement. The people thirsted for his blood. Gavin’s people. The one’s he’d been whispering to, planting seeds of dissent amongst, the ones he’d convinced to support him instead of their “Mad” King. The ones who led the acts of treason.

If he was entirely honest with himself, he knew he was never meant to rule.

_Yes, you were, and you shall again._

Thoughts seemingly not entirely his own invaded his mind, whispering reminders of his time in the Nether, his lack of trust, fear, betrayal, conspiracy, paranoia. He had to physically shake himself out of it several times, but it left him with a headache and a metallic taste in his mouth.

It didn’t come as a surprise when he heard footsteps coming down the stairs, but it was a surprise to see Michael’s face illuminated in the glow of the torch he carried, along with a tray with a bowl of food of some kind, and a plate with what looked like bread. Ryan’s mouth watered at the thought of eating real food again.

Still, he had expected Jeremy and he was just a shade disappointed.

“Hi Michael,” Ryan said, voice husky from the stale air of the dungeon. “I thought Jeremy might…”

Michael cut him off. “Hard to carry a tray and a torch with one hand.”

Ryan blinked a few times, not fully understanding. “I… I’m sure he’d have managed…”

Michael snorted. “I’m kidding, he’s just busy.”

Ryan breathed a sigh of relief. “I just… I need to talk to him, Michael.”

Michael set the tray down on the floor at his feet, just out of Ryan’s reach through the bars.

“I’m sure you do,” he said, dismissively.

Ryan’s eye itched and he rubbed at it without thinking.

He walked over to the bars and reached out for the tray.

Michael shook his head. “First, I have a question. And I want an answer.”

               _Of course he does._

There was that voice again.

“What do you want to know?” Ryan asked hesitantly, eyeing the contents of the bowl on the tray, which seemed to be a brown gruel.

“What did you do to me?”

“What do you mean?” Ryan asked, genuinely unsure.

Michael pulled the neck of his shirt down to reveal a pink scar across his heart. It looked to be a deep wound, reasonably fresh, but already healed over. It wasn’t like anything Ryan had ever seen, although any deep wound there would surely have been fatal.

“Skeleton archer,” Michael said. “You’re not the only one who’s been shot by one. Should’ve killed me, but lo and behold, I’m still here. So, what’s going on, Ryan? Why can’t I die?”

Ryan’s mouth suddenly went dry. He knew the answer immediately.

“I was worried this might happen…”

_I knew there was a reason he wanted you back so badly._

“ _What_  might happen, Ryan?”

Ryan hesitated a moment. His eye ached dully. He pressed the heel of his palm against the Ender eye, feeling the strange almost-vibrations it seemed to give off. He shook it off; he was probably imagining it.

“The salve,” he said. “It was designed to hijack the reanimation process to restore Jeremy’s cells to normal, healing them, rather than turning them. It couldn’t help what had already been done, but it changed the metabolism of every cell in his body… and likely yours too.”

“But I wasn’t bitten…”

Ryan shook his head. “You wouldn’t have to be. In order to uhh…” he struggled to find the right words, “…to  _kickstart_  Jeremy’s cells back to life, I had to fiddle with their metabolism, increasing the rate of…”

Michael’s eyes looked about ready to glaze over and his brows were starting to knit together in frustration. Ryan was all too familiar with the look of someone overburdened with his technical jargon.

“…look, it basically means all the cells affected by the salve work at super-human levels. They heal really fast, and it’s really hard for them to die unless they’re programmed to by the body… which means it’s really, really hard to kill Jeremy. And you. And probably Gavin too.”

The last part hit him with a vague sense of dread he wasn’t ready to process, so he pushed it down. 

“And you, it seems,” Michael said dryly. “Nearly three weeks in the Nether, no food or water, shot and stabbed and sliced up six ways from Sunday…”

“Don’t remind me…” Ryan mumbled.

“Wait, but you refused to touch the salve… you fucking knew, you said you were worried about the side effects, you fucker! Did you know it would do this to us?”

“I didn’t know for sure,” Ryan said meekly. “It was just a possibility. One  _I_ couldn’t risk. Not if it couldn’t bring Jer…” He swallowed thickly and went very quiet.

It took a few seconds before it clicked in Michael’s brain.

“Shit. How did I not see that before?”

_He’s a weakness._

“You fell for him, didn’t you?”

Ryan studied the floor at his feet, breathing shallow.

“It’s not like that…”

_It’s exactly like that._

The only time he’d even come close to admitting it was after Jeremy had been bitten. The cold fear that he was the one to cause it. That he had let Jeremy die. The realisation that he had no intention of going on in a world that Jeremy wasn’t a part of. But hearing it like this, so bluntly from Michael’s mouth, it was undeniably true. It was what had kept him going in the Nether, not spite. It was stronger than that. 

It felt like he’d been the one shot in the heart.

“Oh, oh! And that’s where you came in contact with the salve – Jeremy was coated in it and you touched  _him_. Oh, it all makes sense now! That’s why you don’t seem to heal as well.” Michael gestured to Ryan’s eye and scar-covered, emaciated body. “You didn’t get a full dose like we did.”

Ryan chewed his lip and nodded. “Probably.”

Michael sniffed and shook his head. “And you didn’t even  _know_. Does Jeremy know?”

Ryan shook his head stiffly. “There’s… there’s a lot he doesn’t know.”

“I’ll fuckin’ bet,” Michael said, rolling his eyes before scanning the empty dungeon. He shivered visibly. It held unpleasant memories.

Ryan didn’t miss it.

“What happened to the other prisoners?” Ryan asked quietly.

Michael’s face turned to stone. “They had to be put down,” he said simply.

Ryan’s stomach flipped. “Oh.” Was all that came out of his mouth.

So much of his work had hinged on them, he could have learned so much. All his carefully controlled infections and treatment trials and…

Michael cut short his train of thought. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Hmm?” Ryan was still lost in his experiments.

Michael’s tone was acid. “There were dozens of them. All of them infected. Some of them were barely recognizable as human. Were they even criminals, or just hapless villagers you snatched from the streets?”

Ryan just shook his head. “My experiments required-”

“Bullshit! Your fucking  _experiments_  were  _people_ , Ryan! They were people with jobs and friends and families. Jesus Christ.”

“I was trying to help them! I could have saved hundreds!”

“No. Not like that.  _Never_  like that.” Michael’s eyes were dark. “They were suffering. We did them a kindness by putting them down. No one deserved what they got. Not them, not us, and sure as shit not Jeremy.”

“Don’t bring this back to him!” Ryan snapped, his shout echoing off the walls of the empty dungeon. “You think I don’t feel bad enough about that already?”

Michael stared him down a moment longer before calmly saying, “Everyone in here was someone’s Jeremy, Ryan. Why can’t you understand that?”

 

 

_He squeezed his eyes shut and blocked out the world, imagining it as it might be. Without Jeremy._

_It wasn’t fair._

_He silently pinned all his hope on this salve. It was all he had left to cling to. If Jeremy couldn’t be revived…_

_“Ry-an…?” Gavin’s voice wavered, cutting through his daydream._

_“What Gav-?” His eyes snapped open in time to see Jeremy’s fingers alternately clenching and unclenching, his legs twitching in response to the salve… at least, that was what he hoped…_

_He jumped to his feet and ran to Jeremy’s side, clasping his hand between his own._

_“Jeremy?!”_

_Michael and Gavin took a cautious step back._

_Michael gently nudged Gavin towards the door. “Get Geoff and Jack,” he muttered as he picked up his sword, mentally steeling himself to use it if he had to._

_Ryan searched Jeremy’s face for any signs of recognition._

_“Jeremy? Can you hear me?”_

_He squeezed his hand in his own._

_Jeremy’s cold fingers squeezed back._

_“C’mon, answer me, Jeremy…”_

_Michael was ready. “Ryan, stand back, man. If it’s not him…”_

_Ryan shook his head but didn’t move away. “It’s him… I know it is. Jeremy? Answer me.”_

_“Ryan, c’mon, step back…”_

_“Jeremy, you can do it, buddy. Please. Open your eyes, Jeremy.”_

_Jeremy’s grip tightened, cold fingers like stone, crushing around Ryan’s hand, but he squeezed back reassuringly._

_Geoff, Jack and Gavin appeared in the doorway, eyes flicking nervously between the three figures in the room. Michael with his sword drawn and at the ready, Ryan protectively hunched over Jeremy on the table. If Jeremy had turned, that was it for Ryan. Either Jeremy would get him, or Michael would. Everyone held their breath._

_Jeremy’s eyes fluttered open. Wild, dazed and confused, the silence felt like it stretched for an eternity._

_“…Ryan?”_

_The crew let out a collective breath of relief._

_“You kept your promise,” Jeremy barely whispered._

_“I did.” Ryan smiled warmly, tears collecting at the corners of his eyes._

_“Welcome back, buddy.”_

 

In the cold cell, tears had begun to collect in the corners of his eye at the memory, stinging as he blinked them away.

Michael sneered, disgusted. “You know what, you don’t deserve this.” He tipped the tray up dramatically, sending the meagre contents of his meal scattering over the floor of his cell.

Ryan didn’t even flinch.

“You’re a monster.” Michael spat as he turned his back and left without another word.

Ryan buried his face in his hands, feeling the steady pulse of the Eye of Ender under his right palm, hot tears under his left. He couldn’t help but feel like he was right.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Eye for an Eye - Podfic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11428728) by [grimalkinInferno](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grimalkinInferno/pseuds/grimalkinInferno)




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